During his I’ll-never-get-that-hour-of-my-life-back monologue on Pat McAfee’s show, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said a lot of things. At one point, he said that, during his effort to persuade the league to recognize that his homeopathic treatment should be regarded as a vaccination, a league doctor told him that it’s impossible for someone who is vaccinated to catch or spread COVID.
Reached for comment, the NFL denied the claim, strongly.
“No doctor from the league or the joint NFL-NFLPA infectious disease consultants communicated with the player,” the NFL said in a statement issued to PFT. “If they had, they certainly would have never said anything like that.”
That’s a tactful way of saying that Rodgers isn’t telling the truth. (Again.)
So what really happened? Per a source with knowledge of the situation, a member of the Green Bay medical staff asked the NFLPA medical director whether an alternative homeopathic treatment would make a player “fully vaccinated.” The NFLPA medical director asked NFL chief medical officer Allen Sills for his opinion on the subject.
A joint expert retained and employed by the league and the union then reviewed the materials, concluding that no peer-reviewed literature could be found to determine that the homeopathic treatment provides appropriate COVID protection. Absent sufficient data to confirm that the proposed homeopathic treatment would work, the treatment was not approved.
The NFLPA then said it would inform the player in question, who obviously was Rodgers. A league doctor indicated that he was available for further discussion with the player, but that he never was contacted.